No foul play in death of Chiefs fans found frozen in backyard as charges and cause of death finally revealed
Kansas City police confirmed there was no foul play in the deaths of three friends found frozen in their buddy’s backyard over a year ago — putting to rest boundless theories that dogged the bizarre tragedy.
The friends — Ricky Johnson Jr., 38, David Harrington, 37, and Clayton McGeeney, 36 — each died of “fentanyl and cocaine toxicity,” officials revealed Wednesday, according to the Kansas City Star.
Bags of the dangerous drugs were found inside 39-year-old Jordan Willis’ home, where the friends had been hanging out to watch a Kansas City Chiefs football game together on Jan. 7, 2024.
Two days later, their bodies were found frozen out back by concerned friends — while Willis had been inside and apparently failed to notice them.
The trio’s family and friends long pressed for answers about how they were left out in the cold to die while Willis claimed to be completely ignorant of his pals’ bodies right outside his door.
Finally, their loved ones will get some answers. Kansas City police have concluded their investigation — announcing on Wednesday that they were bringing involuntary manslaughter charges against Willis and his alleged drug dealer, 42-year-old Ivory Carson.
Both men were arrested Wednesday afternoon.
“This case is a tragic reminder of the dangers of street drugs,” Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd said Wednesday.
“But make no mistake, the people who supply those drugs can and will be held accountable when people overdose.”
Willis’ DNA was predominantly found on the cocaine bag, while the fentanyl bag had a significant amount of Carson’s, Zahnd said.
Text messages between Carson and victim Harrington also indicated he had sold drugs to the friends, something to which he later confessed.
Willis, an HIV researcher, claimed he went to bed early on the night of the deaths and didn’t hear friends and family pounding on his doors because, he said, he was sleeping with headphones on and a fan running.
In addition to missing the sight of his three friends frozen and dead in his backyard, Willis managed to overlook their cars parked out front until McGeeney’s fiancée broke down a door and forced her way inside.
Those bizarre details — and Willis’ career — sparked wild speculation that he had poisoned his buddies with some concoction of his own making.
Such theories were fanned by claims from McGeeney’s cousin, who told NewsNation that Willis was known as “The Chemist” by his friends because he liked to whip up cocktails of drugs to help them get high.
Sources close to Willis denied those stories, however, explaining that his job had nothing to do with lab science but was based entirely on computational data.
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An attorney for Willis says he was not the one who bought the drugs that led to his friends’ overdose deaths.
“Jordan maintains that he is not responsible for purchasing or supplying the drugs that led to the deaths of his three friends,” attorney John Picerno told the Kansas City Star after his client’s arrest.
“We are very much looking forward to the day a jury gets to hear all of the evidence in this case.”
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Three friends were found dead last year after watching a Chiefs game. Now, 2 men face charges in the case
For more than a year, mystery shrouded the case of three friends who were found dead outside a Kansas City home after watching a Chiefs football game on a below-freezing winter night. On Wednesday, two men were charged with killing them, prosecutors said.
Clayton McGeeney, 36, Ricky Johnson, 38, and David Harrington, 37, were discovered dead outside the home of Jordan Willis in the Platte County portion of Kansas City around 10 p.m. on January 9, 2024, two days after the men watched the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Los Angeles Chargers.
Willis and Ivory J. Carson are both charged with a single count of delivery of a controlled substance and three counts of involuntary manslaughter for “recklessly causing the deaths” of the three men, Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd said at a Wednesday news conference. Each charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
All three men died of fentanyl and cocaine combined toxicity, a doctor with Forensic Medical of Kansas determined, according to Zahnd.
“This case has received considerable attention from the media, and I think some people seem to believe that charges may never be brought in this case,” Zahnd said. “People may have doubted this investigation because it has spanned over a year.”
Detectives obtained consent to search the home after the bodies were found and subsequently found two “plastic bags containing white powdery substances,” one of which contained cocaine after being tested, according to Zahnd. The probable cause statement alleges Willis “was determined to be the major contributor of DNA found on that bag.”
The other bag contained fentanyl, with Carson’s DNA found to be the primary contributor on that bag, he continued, citing the probable cause statement.
Carson is being held in the Platte County jail in lieu of a $100,000 case bond, Zahnd said, while “we’ve been told that Mr. Willis is going to surrender himself on the warrant issued for his arrest and that he will post a $100,000 case bond.”
Willis’ lawyer, John Picerno, said there is no evidence that Willis bought the drugs that his friends ingested before their deaths, noting they had been partying all day, the Associated Press reported. And he said Willis didn’t know that they were still in his backyard — or that they needed medical attention — until police showed up, according to the AP.
“It has been a very, very long year for Jordan,” Picerno told the AP. “He’s lost his job. He’s lost his home. He’s lost his friends. The public are pointing at him as someone who essentially killed them. And nothing could be further from the truth.”
No attorney is listed for Carson in online court records.
McGeeney’s fiancée told police the three had gone to Willis’ home the day of the Kansas City Chiefs football game on January 7, the last game of the regular season. But the three friends never came home.
Two days later, on January 9, McGeeney’s fiancée went looking for him at Willis’ house after the families became increasingly worried about their lack of communication and she found “at least one person dead on the back patio,” said Zahnd.
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Kansas City had a high of 37 degrees and a low of 29 degrees with trace amounts of rain and snow on January 7, and temperatures dropped to right around freezing just before sunrise the next morning.
Jennifer Marquez, McGeeney’s mother, told CNN in January 2024 her son’s fiancée told her what happened that day: “She told me that she tried the doors, tried the gate, and eventually just — her phone was saying that Clayton was there. You know, it was pinging off his phone … So she knew something was up.”
According to Marquez, after no one answered the door, the woman removed a screen and broke into the house through a window. A police statement said she “broke into the basement.”
Eventually, she called the Kansas City police. According to a police statement, officers “responded to the back porch and confirmed there was a dead body. Upon further investigation, officers located two other dead bodies in the back yard.”
Police said at the time they found “no obvious signs of foul play.”
The police statement said that “the resident at the house was cooperative with detectives the day the deceased were discovered.”
Zahnd said Wednesday the probable cause affidavit recounts a statement of a witness who said he was at Harrington’s home with him and McGeeney, Johnson and Willis the night of the football game where he saw “a large plate of cocaine allegedly supplied by Mr. Willis that everyone was using.” The witness said the three friends were headed to Willis’ house after the game, Zahnd said.
Another witness who left before midnight said he was with Willis, Harrington, McGeeney and Johnson at Willis’ home later on in the evening where they drank alcohol, smoked marijuana and used cocaine, Zahnd said.
Data recovered from Harrington’s phone allegedly contains text messages between Harrington, McGeeney, Johnson, Willis, Carson and others consistent with the “purchase and use of cocaine.”
The messages allegedly indicate Carson supplied Harrington with cocaine, Zahnd said.
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said at the Wednesday news conference: “This is a message to those that are bringing fentanyl into our communities providing it to people, harming our community – that you will be held accountable, you will be arrested, and you will be charged.”
When asked why the investigation took over a year, Zahnd said: “It takes time to bring these cases and there are additional investigative things that had to be wrapped up before this case could be brought.”
CORRECTION: A photo caption on a previous version of this story misstated when the three men were found dead. They were found January 9, 2024.
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‘It takes time to bring these cases,’ prosecutor says
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Two charged in deaths of 3 men found frozen at Northland home
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – Three men died more than a year ago, found in the backyard and on a back porch the night of a Chiefs game.
Clayton McGeeney, Ricky Johnson, and David Harrington were found dead at a house near Northwest Waukomis Drive and Northwest Barry Road around 10 p.m. on Jan. 9, 2024.
Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd charged Jordan Willis and Ivory Carson with:
A probable cause document indicated that McGeeney, Johnson and Harrington died from a combined toxicity of fentanyl and cocaine.
It listed off statements and evidence collected over the course of that year as follows.
A witness described partying with Willis and the others at Harrington’s home before they left for Willis’ house.
“Witness #2 observed a large plate with anywhere from ½ ounce to an ounce of “blow” (Cocaine) which was supplied by WILLIS and everyone present was using the cocaine,” the statement read. “Witness #2 stated WILLIS was the only person in the group who could find and purchase that amount of cocaine.”
That witness went on to say that when the group gets cocaine, their usual supplier was someone they knew as “Blade Brown”, identified by police as Carson. Police wrote that Carson later admitted to selling cocaine by the gram to the group previously.
Another witness said when the friends wanted to party and ran low on money, they would hang out with Willis because he would provide it.
An attorney who represented Willis told KCTV5 last year Willis had nothing to do with the deaths.
“Jordan is unaware of how his friends died. Like the rest of us, Jordan is anxiously awaiting the results of the autopsy and toxicology report. On behalf of Jordan and his family, we wish to express our deepest sympathies to the friends and family members of these young men, and our thoughts and prayers are with them,” John Picerno said during an interview in 2024.
He also said Willis allowed officers to search his house when they arrived at his front door. Picerno said Willis’ friends parked their cars on the street and he didn’t see them until after police arrived.
The probable cause document indicated two bags found in the home were tested for narcotics. One was determined to be cocaine, the other fentanyl. DNA results later described Willis as a “major contributor” of DNA on the bag of cocaine and Carson as a “major contributor” of DNA on the bag of fentanyl.
Cell phone data was extracted from Harrington’s phone, showing messages between the group. The messages, the document said, “showed the main source of supply of Cocaine for HARRINGTON was CARSON.”
Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd and Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves held a news conference Wednesday announcing the charges.
Both said they hoped the charges send a message about consequences.
“To those who continue to bring fentanyl and other dangerous drugs into our community, know that if you are distributing those drugs, you’re causing harm, you will be arrested and you will be charged,” said Graves.
Zahnd said they had not yet determined whether the men were aware they were taking fentanyl.
“This is a terrible, tragedy,” said Zahnd. “Three men are dead because of the dangers of street drugs, of fentanyl, of cocaine. And I just urge anybody who is thinking about buying drugs on the street to think twice before they do it.”
Willis, who had lived at the Northland home, moved out of the house last year.
The bonds for Willis and Carson were set at $100,000.
The Platte County Prosecutor’s Office has said the case remains under investigation.
John Picerno, an attorney for Jordan Willis, shared a statement with KCTV following the charges.
“We are surprised that Jordan was charged with the deaths of his three friends,” Picerno said. “That was contrary to what the prosecuting attorney’s office told me several months ago. The probable cause statement submitted by the state is consistent with what Jordan stated happened. Jordan maintains that he is not responsible for purchasing or supplying the drugs that led to the deaths of his three friends. We are very much looking forward to the day a jury gets to hear all of the evidence in this case.”
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